Dear Editor:

When you’re driving by a construction site, do you ever wonder how all those moving parts meld together in an organized and coherent effort?

How do all those construction workers seem to approach the task with a single-mindedness that later results in a grand new structure?  On a well-run project, the secret is a Project Labor Agreement.

Project Labor Agreements (PLA) bring order and specific responsibility to public construction projects. PLAs are binding agreements that call for collective bargaining between labor and contractors. In addition, they define the terms and conditions applicable to all workers – union and nonunion — on public construction projects.

It’s what they deliver – an agreed-upon concerted outcome – that makes them so effective. They provide stability to larger construction projects while ensuring compliance with workplace safety and health laws, wage protection and equal opportunity.

The Township of Parsippany and its taxpayers can see the benefits of a PLA throughout the state of New Jersey. Many counties and municipalities in the state have supported Project Labor Agreements, including Morris County.

PLAs have existed since the 1930s because their components provide cohesion to each project.

These include:

Stability and Predictability.

PLAs add order by clearly defining each contractor and craft worker’s responsibility. They address labor issues, designate cost standards, prevent shutdowns and are mindful of maintaining completion schedules. Construction sites might seem chaotic to outsiders, as trades work independently. PLAs provide coordination and leadership to this process while acting as a mediator to prevent any disputes.

During the construction cycle, there is little that decision makers – municipal leaders, developers, builders and contractors – find more problematic than misunderstanding and chaos. They both lead to an argumentative merry-go-round affecting timelines, costs and effective management. PLAs virtually eliminate these issues, often beforehand, because the solid relationship between labor and management prevent tension from escalating.

Diversity and Local Jobs

Nothing helps a project gain allies with public officials and the community at large than promoting the hiring of workers that are local constituents. And when a project can attract women or minorities, both of whom the industry has underserved, their enthusiasm increases. PLAs can vigorously encourage hiring efforts from small businesses, minority contractors and local workers while emphasizing government-required safety training.  For example, a PLA can stipulate that a worker has undergone and obtained OSHA certification. This reinforces the “safety first” attitude of the workers and reduces accidents.

Training and Advancement

Most contractors want the most highly skilled, well-trained worker available. PLAs pay considerable dividends by preventing costly errors and accidents because of their emphasis on training. Union carpenters, for example, spend a minimum of four years with in-class and real-work experience before becoming a journeyperson. Union members are continuously trained in ever shifting technologies in the construction industry. Across all building trades, 150,000 union members work with thousands of contractors to build the best quality product for the residents of New Jersey.

Some anti-PLA rhetoric denounces PLAs by spawning myths.

They include:

• PLAs apply only to union workers.They apply to union and nonunion workers, and they don’t mandate that workers must join a union.
• Some critics claim that PLAs reduce the number of bidders on public projects, thus raising costs. A 2020 study in the “Public Works Management & Policy” journal reviewed 263 bid openings for community college construction in California from 2007 to 2016. This first-ever study of its kind concluded that the presence or absence of PLAs did not alter the number of bidders on a project.

Why do PLAs myths exist, and why do certain companies object to using PLAs? It’s simple. Because some companies want to reduce the competition. Without PLAs, they can skirt hiring mandates, disregard the need for certified skills among workers, and ignore efforts to provide job opportunities or training for women and minorities. Yet all these reasons pale against the most frequent motivation: worker exploitation. Worker exploitation is rampant in the construction industry. The unethical practice of paying below standard wages or paying workers off the books is eliminated when entities utilize a project labor agreement.

The core value that PLAs offer is transparency. It is a public document. Anyone can review it – municipal officials, organizations, construction companies and the general public – to assess whether the agreement is fair and makes sound business sense. Indeed, it raises the obvious question of why anyone would not support a PLA.

PLAs remain the fairest, most transparent and productive approach for conducting business in Parsippany and Morris County’s construction industry. It also benefits taxpayers because PLAs control costs and ensure the availability of highly skilled talent for all local building projects.

And the added benefit in Parsippany and throughout New Jersey is that thousands of union trades people, with the best training in the industry, are prepared to meet any construction needs.

Cyndie Williams, Director, Carpenter Contractor Trust

Editor’s Note: The Carpenter Contractor Trust (CCT) is a labor-management trust formed to bond the relationship between the trained talents of union carpenters and their qualified signatory contractors to gain market share within the Eastern Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters.

Dear Mayor Barberio and Town Council members,

Since I have not had a response from any of your offices to my recent email on the subject of PLA’s for Parsippany, and the next Town Council meeting is scheduled for October 4, which is the holiday of Yom Kippur and the holiest day of the year for people of my faith, and I therefore cannot be in attendance at Town Hall to speak directly to you, I feel compelled to again amplify my thoughts on this issue. more publicly.

Since you all took office I have been very supportive of your community activities.  I think you have begun to recast your images and accessibility (as well as that of the local Republican Party) in a great way and I applaud you all for that.  However, this new action of making taxpayer funded projects only open to union shops in Parsippany is so
wrong in it’s concept that I must ask you to please reconsider this move.

Implementing a Project Labor Agreement (PLA) mandate is so clearly political and serving of the large company and Union labor interests, that it almost boggles the mind that any Republican administration would even consider such a move unless there were underlying and unexplained reasons for going in such a direction.  It seems to me that such an action would surely ultimately backfire on any administration that imposed PLA’s additional costs for public projects on it’s taxpayer/voter citizenry (via higher Union wages while negating smaller local businesses from being able to participate in local projects).

I’ve looked into information on PLA’s and it clearly shows that each taxpayer project increases costs by 30-40% to come to completion.  In order for Unions to get their higher wages, they must first restrict competition of bidding through eliminating non-Unionized shops.  I have read denials of these facts but in the end, that is how it works and often local smaller contractors who might have earned important business and do good
work, and paid a fair wage, are eliminated from the process.  This sends more money out of the community instead of helping local business to keep money in the community by paying local workers.

PLA’s WILL benefit Union leadership and perhaps even some Union members, and I recognize that Unions command large blocks of voters.  However, I strongly believe that Union support is nothing compared to the silent majority; among the voters of Parsippany.  Please do not underestimate the intelligence and commitment of your citizens to recognize issues that do direct and personal damage to themselves and their families (in increased costs for projects and increased tax levies).

I urge you to rethink this PLA effort.  It will do nothing but damage you, your administration, your party and the Township of Parsippany, if you carry out this mandate.

As 52 year resident who loves Parsippany, I am offering to each of you the most sincere and heartfelt advice/request.  PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!  The cost to all involved will be massive.  You have all earned a great deal of personal affection and loyalty from your citizenry.  I believe it would be a great miscalculation to throw this into doubt.

Respectfully submitted,
Hank Heller
Parsippany, NJ 07054